The Complete Short Fiction (2017, Jerry eBooks) Read online

  The crowd tittered. Elizabeth was third in line to the throne and if her half-brother ascended to that throne, married and had children, she would be shunted further down the line of succession. Her chances of becoming queen were wildly remote and the whole room knew it.

  Ascham went on, heedless of their mocking. ‘—I felt that a potential future Queen of England should know this.’

  Henry stared at Ascham for a long moment, not speaking.

  The hall fell silent again.

  Then the king spat, ‘Hell and fucking damnation, Ascham. Just don’t do it again. I’m sick of getting complaints about your fucking teaching methods. That is all. Now, clear this hall!’

  The king’s guards began herding the crowd out of the vast chapel. His humiliation over, Ascham was making to leave as well when the king called, ‘Not you, Ascham! You will stay!’

  And that was something Roger Ascham had not expected.

  Moments later, the great hall was empty, save for Ascham, the king and the king’s chief aide, Sir Harold Rigby.

  ‘Ascham,’ the king said in a very different tone. ‘A most . . . unusual . . . matter has arisen and I require your assistance.’

  ‘My assistance, Your Majesty?’ Ascham did not know where this was going.

  ‘When I come to Cambridge, I enjoy the, ah, ministrations of a young lady at Napier’s establishment, an Italian girl by the name of Isabella. She is a most beautiful thing and she has talents that I have found in no other lady in England.’

  Ascham said nothing. The king’s visits to Napier’s brothel while in Cambridge were well known.

  The king went on: ‘You will, therefore, understand the frustration I felt when I arrived here this week to discover that the girl is not at Napier’s.’

  ‘She no longer works as a prostitute?’ Ascham asked.

  ‘No,’ Sir Harold Rigby interjected. ‘The girl is missing and your king would like her found.’

  TWO

  ASCHAM BLINKED.

  ‘Your Majesty, I am flattered to be asked to find this girl for you, but I am at a loss. Surely you have a half-dozen men better suited to this task than I. Men more at home visiting dens of, ahem, pleasure, or trackers or hunters, like Sir Roderick of York. He is an unmatched hunter, surely he would be a fine tracker of a missing girl.’

  Henry stared directly at Ascham. ‘I dispatched Sir Roderick three days ago on exactly this mission. Come with me.’

  Henry and Rigby led Ascham to a small stable behind the great chapel. Snowflakes drifted down all around them. Mounds of snow lay heaped against the stable’s outer wall. Henry pushed open its doors and Ascham beheld a man’s body lying inside a stall.

  Henry said, ‘As I said, I dispatched Sir Roderick on this mission three days ago. His body was found lying face-down in the snow in the woods near Vicar’s Brook on the south side of town this morning.’

  Ascham stared at the corpse, swallowing hard. Sir Roderick had been a big man, powerful, a warrior’s warrior. Now his body lay in the freezing horse stall like a pale slab of meat.

  Henry stepped up beside Ascham, also gazing at the body of the hunter.

  ‘Roderick was a fine knight and an exceptional huntsman. It is hard to imagine any man getting the better of him,’ the king said. ‘Whoever killed him is formidable, Mr Ascham. My favourite girl is missing and my best man, sent in pursuit of her, is dead. I want to know what is going on. You’re a most peculiar fellow, Ascham, I won’t deny it, but there is always a logic to your madness, a shrewd logic that I do not see often, which is why I tolerate your occasionally bizarre lessons with my sweet Elizabeth. You think outside the usual. You see beyond the normal. This situation is beyond the normal. I want my girl found and I want to know who took her so that I may torture him myself before I cut off his fucking head and mount it on a fucking stake.’

  Henry turned to Ascham. ‘Can you do this for me?’

  ‘I will do my very best, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Rigby will give you whatever assistance you need. Find her, Mr Ascham.’

  The king left. Ascham did not.

  He turned to Rigby. ‘Let’s take this body to the school of medicine. I wish to examine it.’

  *

  An hour later, the body of Sir Roderick lay on a wooden bench surrounded by the gruesome tools of the surgical trade. The skin on his face was completely white from the cold, Ascham noted, white as a ghost.

  Alongside Ascham was his friend and head of the school of medicine, John Blyth.

  ‘All right, Roger,’ Blyth said after Ascham had briefed him on the identity of the dead man and the manner of the discovery of his body. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know how he died.’

  Blyth snorted. ‘If he is one of the king’s men, he probably drank too much wine, collapsed in the snow and froze to death.’

  ‘Indulge me,’ Ascham said.

  As Blyth began sorting his instruments, Ascham set about removing the dead man’s boots.

  He paused.

  There were curious clumps of yellow-flecked dirt wedged in the soles of Sir Roderick’s boots.

  ‘John, do you know what this yellow dirt is?’ he asked. ‘It looks like a variety of sulphur deposit.’

  Blyth glanced over at it. ‘There are several sulphurous springs in these parts. Make an ungodly smell, they do.’

  ‘While I do enjoy the odd walk,’ Ascham said, ‘I do not wander as far in my ambulations as you do, John. Where are these springs? Are they on the south side of town near Vicar’s Brook, perhaps?’

  ‘No, there are none there,’ Blyth said. ‘There are perhaps a dozen of them but they are mainly to the north and west of Cambridge.’

  Blyth commenced his examination of the corpse and after about an hour he reported to Ascham: ‘Perhaps I should show more pause before I disparage the king’s associates. Your man here didn’t freeze to death at all. He drowned. His lungs are filled with water. He was dead well before his body froze.’

  ‘He drowned then froze?’ asked Ascham.

  Blyth said, ‘Yes. But then . . . no, that’s just ridiculous.’

  ‘Tell me anyway,’ Ascham said.

  ‘Well, you said his body was discovered lying face-down in the snow near Vicar’s Brook. If he drowned, wouldn’t he be found in the very lake or river in which he drowned, or at least on the shore of it? Drowned men do not stagger out onto land. This man drowned and was then taken from whatever body of water in which he drowned and placed on land, in snow, to make us think he froze to death.’

  Ascham stared at the body, thinking.

  ‘How very peculiar. Thank you for your help, John. I shall ensure that the king hears of it. I, however, have more inquiries to make, the first of which is to visit our missing girl’s place of employment.’

  THREE

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Roger Ascham strode down the main street of Cambridge, coat wrapped tightly around his body, braced against the driving snow. It was getting late in the afternoon and few people were out in the ghastly weather.

  He had left Bess in the care of his good friend Gilbert Giles, with instructions that Giles give her a lesson in secular philosophy. Ascham knew full well that neither Giles nor Bess would follow his instructions. Instead, while he ventured out into the terrible weather, they would almost certainly sit by the fire and play chess—Giles was the best player at Cambridge and Elizabeth, frustrated at losing constantly to Ascham, would no doubt ask Giles for some winning strategies.

  Ascham arrived at his destination and scowled: Napier’s brothel. With a sigh, he entered the house of ill repute.

  It was warm inside the brothel, thanks to a blazing fire in a corner of the ante-room. The entry area was large, with lush rugs and expensive velvet curtains. Six young women with painted faces and wearing only their undergarments sauntered around the room. Business was clearly good at Napier’s.

  Ascham was greeted by a young woman with curly orange hair and wearing just a petticoat. Her nam
e was Georgiana.

  When Ascham asked to speak with the owner, Mr Napier, Georgiana fetched him and Ascham was surprised to be met by a short, fresh-faced and beardless man barely twenty years of age.

  ‘Mr Napier? I am Roger Ascham, here at the command of His Majesty, King Henry. I have been commissioned by the king to inquire into the whereabouts of an Italian girl named Isabella who is said to work at this establishment. You are the owner of this house, are you not?’

  The young man nodded. ‘I am.’

  ‘Forgive me, but you strike me as rather young to be the owner of such a large establishment.’

  ‘It was my father’s. I have only just inherited it. My father . . . died . . . recently.’

  There was something in the way he said it that caught Ascham short.

  ‘How recently?’ he asked.

  ‘Ten days ago.’

  ‘Forgive me for asking,’ Ascham pressed, ‘but may I inquire how he died?’

  Young Napier pursed his lips and threw a glance at Georgiana nearby. ‘Let us not discuss it in here.’ He grabbed a thick fur-lined coat. ‘Come outside.’

  *

  Moments later, Ascham found himself standing out in the cold with Napier.

  ‘My father was murdered,’ Napier said flatly. ‘He was found with his head removed from his body over on the eastern side of town.’

  ‘His head had been cut off?’ Ascham asked.

  ‘Cleanly,’ Napier said. ‘Without a nick or a shred to the surrounding skin. A shepherd found his body near the sheep track over by the Mill Cemetery. He found the corpse lying in the snow with the head just sitting there beside it. My father had gone in search of the very girl you seek: Isabella.’

  Ascham felt his throat tighten.

  He did not mention to Napier the fate of Sir Roderick. Isabella, it seemed, was a dangerous girl. Those who went in search of her met untimely and unpleasant ends and now he himself bore that task.

  Napier went on: ‘Isabella was a particularly lovely girl, spritely and vivacious, with flowing dark hair, enormous brown eyes and a beautiful smile. She was also, I must say, very skilled at the erotic arts. As you are clearly aware, she was a special favourite of the king’s when he came to Cambridge to visit.’

  ‘Do you know anything of the girl’s final movements?’ Ascham asked. ‘For instance, who her last customer was?’

  ‘For the sake of discretion, we do not keep written records of our customers and our girls,’ Napier said. ‘But our memories are good, my father’s in particular.’

  ‘You think he went in search of her final customer?’ Ascham asked.

  ‘Yes. Occasionally, for our richer customers or those gentlemen who do not wish to be seen on our premises, we send our girls to their residences. Isabella’s last job, I am told, was at a customer’s residence and my father, it seems, went to that residence to find her.’

  ‘And he did not return.’

  ‘And he did not return,’ Napier agreed.

  Ascham frowned. ‘Tell me again, where was your father’s body found?’

  Napier turned and pointed. ‘At the edge of the Mill Cemetery, about a mile that way.’

  As the young man raised his arm to point eastward, Ascham saw something trickle off his back and fall to the snowy ground: some grains of yellow soil, sulphur-like dirt of the kind he had seen on the boots of Sir Roderick. The sandy substance had dropped out of the thick fur lining that covered Napier’s neck and shoulders

  A chill ran through Ascham. Could this diminutive man have been the one who had killed Sir Roderick? It didn’t seem likely but then—

  ‘Mr Napier,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even, ‘your coat, may I ask how you acquired it?’

  ‘This?’ Napier looked down at it. ‘Why, it was my father’s. It was a gift from the king himself, as thanks for bringing the girl Isabella to his attention a few years ago. As you can see, it is of exceptional quality.’

  Ascham’s eyes narrowed. ‘It was your father’s . . .’ His mind was turning now. ‘Wait, was your father wearing this coat when his body was found near the cemetery?’

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘When his head was severed, his body fell into the yellow-flecked dirt . . .’ Ascham said, thinking aloud. ‘Napier and Roderick were killed in the same place. And yet they were found far apart, at the southern and eastern extremities of Cambridge.’

  ‘Roderick?’ Napier said, perplexed. ‘The southern and eastern extremities? I’m sorry, but what the Devil are you talking about?’

  Ascham snapped back to attention. ‘My apologies, young sir. My mind was running away with things. There is more to this than just the death of your father. Thank you, you have been very helpful indeed.’

  FOUR

  THEIR MEETING OVER, Napier went back inside his establishment. Ascham turned and began walking up the snow-covered street.

  He thought about the yellow soil. According to Blyth, it could be found around springs in any of a dozen places to the north and west of the wider Cambridge area, but which place specifically?

  Lost in thought, Ascham had not gone a hundred paces when a woman’s voice stopped him. ‘Good sir?’

  He turned to find the young red-haired woman from Napier’s standing before him in a hooded cloak, the girl named Georgiana.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ she said, ‘but I could not help overhearing earlier when you told Mr Napier that you were inquiring into the whereabouts of Isabella. She was my good friend and I am desperately aggrieved by her disappearance. The other girls are also fearful for word has spread among the ladies of our profession in these parts.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ascham asked.

  Georgiana looked about herself anxiously. ‘Lewd women are disappearing. Three from Peterborough, all from different houses, two from Bedford, again both from different establishments, and three also from Colchester, again all from separate brothels. No-one has made this connection except for us lewd women and the sheriffs and noblemen do not care for our opinions or fears.’

  Ascham frowned in thought. The towns of Peterborough, Bedford and Colchester formed a wide circle around Cambridge.

  ‘I care for what you say,’ he said. ‘So our abductor is not only dangerous, he is also shrewd. He targets prostitutes, probably because they are often itinerant or foreign-born and so have few relatives or friends in a town. They are not missed. And he is careful to take only one woman from each house of ill repute—and then from different towns—so few notice . . . few, that is, except women in your trade.’

  ‘Yes, sir. That’s absolutely right,’ Georgiana said. ‘Many of us girls are very afraid, sir. Some of us are planning to leave this town, leave the whole area, to get as far away as we can from the monster stealing women in our trade.’

  At her words, Ascham’s head snapped up.

  ‘To get as far away as you can . . .’ he repeated. He looked about himself, thinking. He needed a—

  He turned to face the girl. ‘Young lady, thank you for the information you have given me. It may be more important than you can imagine. I fear I must away now. I need to find a map.’

  Ascham found a map of Cambridge in King’s College and took it to John Blyth’s rooms.

  He unrolled the map, spread it out over a desk and examined it. ‘Sir Roderick’s body was found here, by Vicar’s Brook, on the south side of town,’ he said to Blyth as he placed a stone on a spot on the southern quarter of the map.

  ‘And Napier’s body, headless, was found by the Mill Cemetery, to the east of the town centre, here.’ He placed another stone on the map.

  ‘What are you thinking, Roger?’ Blyth asked.

  ‘I am thinking,’ Ascham said, ‘that our killer is trying to throw any would-be investigator off the scent by depositing the bodies as far away as he can from the site of their deaths. So I must find a location in Cambridge which possesses this peculiar yellow soil but which is also as far from these two places as possible.’

  ‘Here,’
Blyth said, planting his index finger on a point in the north-western corner of the map. ‘There is a sizeable deposit of sulphurous dirt here, by a spring that was converted into a moat.’

  Ascham peered at the map. The spot Blyth was indicating was almost exactly equidistant from the two locations marked with stones, as far from them as possible.

  There was one other thing about the location Blyth had indicated.

  His finger had fallen on an icon on the map marked: ‘CAMBRIDGE CASTLE’.

  FIVE

  IT WAS GETTING DARK when Roger Ascham stepped off the main northern road onto the yellow-flecked dirt of a trail that led through dense forest to the ruins of Cambridge Castle.

  Built many centuries before, the castle had long ago fallen into disrepair, its stonework cannibalised to build the university’s colleges.

  There was precious little left of the main building anymore. However, its ancient dungeon still stood, a three-storey structure nestled in the middle of a pond with only a low bridge giving access to it. Up until the last century, this dungeon, with ghastly machines of torture still lining its walls, had been used as something of a local gaol till it, too, fell into disuse.

  The forest around the castle had encroached across the trail and in the dimming light of the afternoon and the ever-falling snow, Ascham wondered if he should wait until morning to investigate the ruins: if he took too long or lost his way, finding his way back in darkness could prove difficult, even deadly, given the cold.

  But he calculated that he had enough time to make it there and back and so he pressed on, pushing aside branches and vines as he trod down the dirt path.

  Many of the branches framing the path had been cut back and Ascham recalled that the Earl of Cumberland’s bastard son had been undertaking some reconstruction work on the old castle’s dungeon. Due to his duties overseeing the education of Princess Elizabeth, Ascham had been spending less time in Cambridge of late, so he was only dimly aware of these repairs.